


Find your way back home

by AirgiodSLV



Series: Find your way back home [1]
Category: Bandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-22
Updated: 2007-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-19 02:32:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"I mean, vampires are kind of morbid, right? They sleep in coffins and everything. I wouldn’t want to sleep in a coffin."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Find your way back home

**Author's Note:**

> The Jon-is-a-vampire AU. Thanks to [](http://tabbyola.livejournal.com/profile)[**tabbyola**](http://tabbyola.livejournal.com/) and [](http://maleyka.livejournal.com/profile)[**maleyka**](http://maleyka.livejournal.com/) for the endless support, and to [](http://adellyna.livejournal.com/profile)[**adellyna**](http://adellyna.livejournal.com/) for fixing what needed to be fixed. Title by Dishwalla.

Jon comes back to the bus at high noon, when the sun is making his skin itch – not burn, he’s not that old, it’s just like the first pink buzz of sunburn on sensitive skin – and ducks into coolness and shadow.

He’s not necessarily looking for Tom, but he finds him anyway, curled up on the ratty couch with Bill, murmuring low. Jon stops and takes a step back automatically, respecting their privacy, but both of them look up at the same time and smile.

“All set up?” Tom asks, displacing Bill slightly to make room for Jon on the couch. He perches on the arm and accepts the offered beer from Tom, half-finished but still cold.

“You’re good to go,” Jon answers, grateful for the beer wetting his dry throat. He’s not made to spend all day in the sun tuning instruments, and hasn’t been since he was born. It’s not as bad as falling asleep at sundown and having to hide indoors all the time, though. Thank goodness for that.

Bill squirms around in Tom’s embrace, tilting his chin up and grinning. “Did you tune my tambourine?”

Jon grins back and sets the now-empty bottle down on the carpet with the others. “I tried, but ten minutes into every show you pick it up and shake the fucking thing, so I don’t know why I bother.”

Bill’s laugh makes Tom smile, that same faint, shy, almost-disbelieving smile he’s had for months now. Jon remembers seeing it for the first time back in early spring, being startled for a moment and then wanting nothing more than to capture it and show them both.

“Hey,” Bill says, and pokes Tom, little jabs of his finger into Tom’s soft belly. “We got you something.” Tom tries to reach for something beside the couch and protect himself simultaneously, finally digging his own fingertips under Bill’s ribcage until he squeals.

They’re always getting him things. It’s endearing, that they accept him so completely for what and who he is, although he now has more books, pictures, and various memorabilia than he knows what to do with. Tom has known for nearly as long as Jon has known him, and he’s the best friend Jon could have ever asked for. Bill and the others found out shortly into tour, after too many drinks and Jon making the mistake of baring his teeth. He’s lucky they’re a hard group to rattle, and fiercely protective of their own.

Tom holds out a tiny metal coffin, which he cracks open and offers with a half-smile. “Death mint?”

“You’re kidding me.” He’s not, though; the little coffin-shaped box is full of white mints, and the cover is adorned with a sleeping vampire. It doesn’t look anything like him, but that’s not the point. They all, Bill especially, still love finding things to give him that make them think of him. It’s become quite the collection. “Are they trying to say my breath tastes like dead things?”

“I think they’re saying vampires have the sweetest breath of them all,” Bill returns, fluttering his eyelashes. Tom’s hand curves over his hip, relaxed but just slightly possessive, like he can’t help but hold on.

“Hey,” Tom says suddenly, looking up and over at Jon. “It’s Tuesday.”

Jon shakes his head, declining the offer. He’s not all that hungry yet, and while he shouldn’t let it go for too long, he doesn’t want to disturb the two of them when they’re like this. Bill is almost always the one he drinks from, and he’s mellow and happy right now, spooned up against Tom’s chest. There will be plenty of time later.

It’s not really sexual at all for him, and never has been, but it’s still…intimate. Jon’s not sure if it makes it better or worse for Tom, being there when he drinks from Bill. They’ve never talked about it. Still, it’s made him feel just the slightest bit awkward lately, especially when Bill tilts his head back and Jon can smell Tom’s cologne in the hollow of his throat.

“I’m actually going to head back out,” Jon says, snapping the coffin closed and sticking it into his pocket. He knows at least one person it will entertain. “See if Panic needs any help.”

Tom tips his head back against the back of the couch, looking amused. “I think that Brendon kid has a crush on you.”

Bill laughs, and Jon flips him – them – off fondly, stretching and snagging the beer bottles to recycle on his way out. “Fuck off.”

* * *

Jon doesn’t think Brendon actually has a crush, but he does follow Jon around everywhere while he sets up, usually with some form of candy in his mouth, asking questions and offering to help. Jon knows Panic as well as any of them, having hung out with them after shows and sometimes on the road, but not really well enough that he’d call them friends. Brendon might be the exception.

He thinks it’s partly because of what’s going on with their band, which is kept as quiet as possible, but there’s no way to miss when only three of them make it to soundcheck, Ryan with that closed-off look, Brendon turning nervous and skittish, talking too fast and too loud or not at all, and Spencer’s mouth so tight Jon thinks his jaw might break. He’s played bass for their checks so often now that he can almost play an entire song from memory.

He doesn’t know if Brent is around today yet or not, and if so, if Ryan is keeping him on a short leash until show time, but he knows there’s still tension by the way Brendon clings to him like a shadow the whole time he’s checking instruments and levels, their conversation almost entirely an unbroken monologue with the occasional nod and smile from Jon.

He picks out one of Panic’s songs on Siska’s bass to try to get Brendon to relax, and it works, Brendon humming along and ripping apart Twizzlers one sticky strand at a time while Jon plays. He talks through the chords when Jon fumbles at the bridge, singing them out one at a time.

Jon blinks a little, because he knows Brendon plays guitar and occasionally, when the threat of death has not yet been issued, Spencer’s drums, but he hadn’t realized Brendon knew the bass parts as well. He wonders if it’s their back-up plan, should Brent really get them into a crunch, for Brendon to switch from guitar to bass. He wonders if they _have_ a back-up plan.

“Hey,” Jon says when Brendon wanders off, fingertip tapping lightly enough against a cymbal that it barely shivers. He unhooks the strap from over his shoulder and pulls out the black tin from the pocket of his cargo pants, shaking them before flipping open the lid. “Want a mint?”

He’d forgotten about the Twizzlers, but Brendon seems to have no problem eating both at once, crunching thoughtfully on a mint while still untwining licorice. “Do those come in a coffin? Dude, that’s so cool. They should be little vampire mints, though, or maybe teeth. Tooth-shaped mints, with little red tips.”

Jon smiles, and lets Brendon pick through the mints until he finds the one that meets his unknown criteria. “That’s kind of morbid,” he points out, and Brendon crunches down again thoughtfully, one long strand of licorice still held between his teeth.

“Not really. Not when…I mean, vampires are kind of morbid, right? They sleep in coffins and everything. I wouldn’t want to sleep in a coffin.” Brendon shudders theatrically, sucking Twizzler-strands into his mouth, and bounces a little on his toes in their tiny white sneakers.

Jon slings an arm over his shoulder and squeezes affectionately. “Neither would I.”

He sees Ryan and Spencer then, coming across the stage towards them, and lets Brendon go immediately. It’s not that he thinks he’s doing anything wrong, but the Panic boys can be weirdly, fiercely protective of each other sometimes, and Jon hasn’t figured out yet what exactly the rules are.

They both look unhappy, but when Ryan finally speaks, he knows it’s not about him. “Hey,” he says, shoulders hunched over and defensive, on guard against the world. “Can we talk later?”

Jon looks from Ryan to Spencer, to Brendon who is suddenly not meeting his eyes. Ryan holds his gaze, though, serious and intense, and there’s a less charged version of that same look on Spencer’s face as well, also directed at him.

“Sure,” he says agreeably, tucking his thumbs into his pockets. “After the show tonight?”

Ryan nods, and beside him Brendon shifts his weight a little, side-to-side on the balls of his feet. Spencer still isn’t giving him anything, an emotional blank wall. “That would be good,” Ryan says. “Thanks. We’ll see you then.”

They both turn to go, Brendon casting one almost guilty look at Jon before following after them, and Jon stands there with a coffin of mints in his hand, wondering what the hell just happened.

* * *

Bill flips the cover of his lyrics book closed out of habit when Jon walks in, protecting the thoughts he isn’t ready to share yet, but when he sees who it is he relaxes a little. Then he takes in the look that must be on Jon’s face right now and frowns. “What is it? Jon.”

Jon leans back against the counter, too restless to sit down, energy humming beneath his skin. He’d wanted to tell Tom first, sort of, but Bill is here and he’s going to find out anyway, sooner or later, and Jon just really needs to tell someone. Besides, if anyone will understand, it’s Bill.

“Ryan and Spencer just asked me to tour with them. To actually go. On tour. Play bass for the band.” It still doesn’t feel real, even when it comes out in the open.

There are a lot of emotions flickering in Bill’s eyes, and Jon realizes fuck, he’d forgotten the part where touring with Panic also meant leaving the Academy, and how Bill might be upset. He says he’s just a guitar tech, the same way Ryan had said it earlier, ‘you’re just a tech here, right?’ but he knows it’s more than that to the guys. He’s one of the family, he sleeps on their bus and gets an equal vote on pizza toppings and films their adventures, side-by-side.

Whatever Bill really feels, he’s only showing the supportive friend side now, smiling and about to offer some form of congratulations when Jon sees his face change, and knows he gets it. “Oh. Oh.”

“Yeah,” Jon says, because that pretty much sums it up. He rubs the back of his neck and wonders how he can walk away from this, and if he even wants to. He doesn’t. But he has friends here and a career, of sorts, he has a best friend and he has Bill, who is a lot more than a food source, but that’s the most important thing right now.

Bill is still staring at him, but with that unfocused look that Jon knows means he’s zoned out and thinking, retreated from the world into his own head. “Okay,” he says finally, still distant but closer now, coming back. “Get me a list of tour dates and locations, we’ll work something out.”

Jon isn’t sure what he’s thinking, because the Academy hasn’t stopped touring since Bill graduated from high school, and they won’t stop just so Bill can fly out to see Jon. “Bill,” he starts, but Bill shakes his head, opens up the book again and flips to the back for a blank page.

“I know people. I have friends who know people, we’ll get you hooked up. You can’t walk away from this, Jon, you’ll never forgive yourself.” Bill is hard at work now, scribbling down names and cities and phone numbers, making a list. Jon would love to see the header he’s going to put on it. ‘Possible Meals on Wheels’ seems grim but appropriate.

Jon doesn’t expect the impulse but he follows it, putting his arms around Bill from behind and squeezing. “Thanks,” he says into the curling fall of Bill’s hair, the familiar smell of his shampoo. “I mean it.”

Bill waves him off, but there’s a soft smile curving his lips, teeth glinting even before he starts nibbling on the edge of his pen. “Go away, I’m working here.”

Jon laughs. “I’ll go tell them,” he says, and leaves to find Tom.

* * *

The tour itself isn’t all that bad. Bill had given him a list of names, numbers, addresses, cities, more than enough to keep him going, and then contacted them all as well on his own, just so Jon didn’t end up giving someone a nasty shock. Jon isn’t sure how those conversations went, exactly. _Hey, I have this friend, he’s kind of a vampire…I know, cool, right? So listen…_

Most of the time he doesn’t even need to call. They’re moving a lot, but every two or three days, just when he starts to get hungry and distracted by Brendon’s throbbing pulse every time he climbs up to snuggle on Jon’s lap, someone smiles at him backstage and says, “Hey, you’re a friend of Bill’s, right?” It’s like the magic code words, and every time he ends up with someone pressed against him and holding gingerly to his waist while he feeds and tries not to get too rough.

He always apologizes afterwards, and some of them are wide-eyed and shocked, like they hadn’t believed even when he’d warned them that it would hurt a little, but most of the time he just gets shaky laughs and ‘it’s cool, really,’ which is more than he’d expected. Bill really does have some chilled-out friends.

He hears about Bill and Tom as soon as it happens, Tom’s sentences short and tight, with frequent cigarette-drag pauses between the words. He doesn’t hear from Bill, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s Tom’s best friend and Bill thinks he’s chosen a side, or because Bill is grieving too, in his own way, and doesn’t want to talk about it.

He doesn’t call Bill because he _is_ Tom’s best friend, and it feels like being disloyal or something, and maybe he has chosen a side. Not that he thinks Tom was all in the right or Bill all in the wrong, and admittedly he’s only heard one side of the story, but what Tom’s told him sounds a lot like Bill, so Jon doesn’t really doubt him.

Jon doesn’t think about what it means until they’re on a new leg of the tour and he hasn’t seen anyone calling themselves Bill’s friend in nearly five days, by which point he’s starting to shake a little. Tom’s with them by that point, though, and he sees when Jon flinches away from the hug Brendon gives him that tugs Jon’s face down against his neck.

“Do you still need…?” Tom asks, gesturing a little vaguely with his cigarette. He inhales hard, and Jon knows it for what it is; steeling himself.

“Yeah,” Jon says quietly, and he wouldn’t ask, but he needs, and if Tom is offering then he’s not going to turn away. It’s better than taking his chances in the city, a nearly impossible task anyway with three bandmates and Zack on his heels.

Tom clenches his fists in Jon’s hoodie so tightly that he stretches the fabric, but it’s blood and Jon’s getting desperate, so he takes it and apologizes later. Tom shrugs it off, but goes straight for another cigarette, hands shaking. Jon has to cup his hand around the lighter to hold it steady.

Tom’s never been comfortable with it; that’s why Jon had Bill. He drinks as infrequently as possible, and longer than he normally would because of it, but he’s trying to make it easier on both of them.

Bill texts him out of the blue one day, about a month later, saying only, _are you ok?_

Jon texts back _yes_ and they don’t talk again for the rest of the tour.

* * *

“Tell me about Chicago,” Spencer says one day, while they’re lying somewhere in the Midwest in a field of daisies. Jon thinks it would probably look amazing on camera, but he doesn’t want to move to try to capture it.

Jon turns his head so he and Spencer are almost nose-to-nose, with matching crinkles around their eyes from smiling at each other. “You’ve already been there,” he points out. Panic has been in Chicago more than once, in fact, although he’s not sure how many times or for how long. He’s been in a lot of cities that he knows nothing about, just from being on tour with them.

“Not just visiting,” Spencer says, following the same train of thought. “Living there. What’s it like?”

Jon considers that, wonders how to summarize pizza and sports and wind and culture, in words for someone who’s been there but hasn’t had the full experience. “Hot in summer, cold in winter,” he says finally, smiling wider when Spencer’s nose wrinkles up a little. He shrugs, lazy and contented in the afternoon heat. “Beautiful all the time.”

Spencer’s cheeks are just the slightest bit pink from the sun, his eyes soaking up Jon’s words. “I’d like to go, with you,” he says softly. “I want to see it like that.”

“I’ll take you,” Jon promises, his fingers tracing over Spencer’s arm to brush away a blade of grass stuck to his skin. He’s already making a list of places they could go, things he wants Spencer to see, wants to be the one to show him. Spencer’s whole face lights up when he sees new things, it’s amazing. Jon loves being the reason he looks like that.

Spencer sits up, and Jon is contemplating whether or not to do the same when he hears Tom’s voice, familiar and light. “Say deep-fried pickles.”

Jon rolls up from the ground, pulls Spencer in towards him and grins for the camera, over-ecstatic and wide-eyed. He can feel Spencer’s laughter under his hand, the full curve of his cheek that tells Jon he’s doing the same.

“Hey,” Spencer says when Tom lowers the camera, tumbles down beside them. “They let you wander off alone?”

“I’m within sight of the bus, it’s okay,” Tom replies somberly, as if he hasn’t had complete autonomy every day of the tour while the rest of them have been chafing to get away. Jon had envied him the day trips and freedom, for a while, until he’d realized that what came along with the restrictions on his time and mobility was more than worth being on a leash for a few months. The other three don’t just make it bearable; they make it something he loves doing.

As if summoned by the thought of them – although Jon knows it’s probably not a coincidence that Tom showed up when he did – Brendon and Ryan wave at them from across the field, shouting something almost too distant to make out.

“Did he just say water balloons?” Jon asks. Tom grins, which Jon is pretty sure can be taken as an affirmative.

“Oh Christ,” Spencer says, and the tone is patented longsuffering, but the sparkle in his eyes tells another story, and he’s not fooling either of them. He climbs to his feet, dusts off his pants with the air of someone preparing to do battle.

“Here wait, you’ve got a little something,” Tom says, and smacks Spencer on the ass. Jon laughs, and Spencer twists around to look at them, his smile unfettered and gorgeous.

He wiggles his ass at them and says, “Thanks,” before heading off towards the bus, and Jon sinks back onto his elbows, watching Spencer walk away.

After a few minutes he looks over at Tom, who seems to be doing the same thing, although with a more thoughtful look on his face. Jon would offer him a penny, but instead he takes the more familiar opening and says, “Pose and smile isn’t usually your style of photography.”

Tom glances sideways at him, just enough that the metal of his ring catches in the light, a bright flash surrounded by the gold halo of his hair. He shrugs a little, leaning back to join Jon in their nest of crushed daisies. “No,” he admits. “I got the shot I wanted about thirty seconds earlier. I just didn’t want to interrupt you guys without warning.”

It’s an odd impulse, but Jon’s still grateful. “He’s a nice kid,” he comments, tilting his face back into the sun. He’s going to burn soon, and badly; vampiric skin doesn’t take kindly to overexposure. Right now, though, all he can feel is warmth and light, and it’s amazing.

Tom snorts, softly, and Jon glances over. He’s plucking blades of grass between his toes, catching the stems of daisies and twisting them free of the ground. “Just a nice kid?” he asks, and if it were anyone but Tom, Jon would be tensing right now, defensive and wary. It is Tom, though, so he takes a moment to consider it, letting the silence seep comfortably around them.

“No,” he says finally. “He’s a good friend.”

Tom’s eyes are hard to read, which they aren’t very often, at least not when Jon is the one looking. Jon thinks he’s going to say something else, but Tom just looks away again, back towards the bus, and another tuft of grass lifts free.

“You realize,” Jon says after another minute, both of them studying the bus on the horizon, “when the inevitable attack comes, he’s going to be the first one to throw.”

Tom smiles, a crooked twist of his lips that Jon’s seen him use before. “We should arm ourselves, then,” Tom declares, and gives Jon a hand up from the grass. The moment is gone before Jon even thinks to remember it.

* * *

Without Tom, it’s harder. Jon finds ways, one-night stands with kinky girls who say they don’t mind and are too drunk to remember, but their blood makes him sick and he feels wretched about it afterwards.

He touches down in Chicago and goes straight to Bill’s doorstep almost without thinking about it. He doesn’t even know where the Academy is right now, but it’s a holiday, so he prays they’re not still touring. It’s freezing outside and his feet are chafing inside his shoes, but he huddles into the scarf for warmth and rings the buzzer.

“Who is it?” comes back through the speaker; Bill’s voice, flat and faintly bored, and Jon is so relieved he has to say his name twice because he stumbles over it the first time. There’s a pause, and then the door buzzer goes off to let him inside. Jon grips the handle in cold fingers and treks up the stairs to Bill’s apartment.

Bill already has the door open by the time he reaches it, leaning confused against the frame. “Hey,” he says, and Jon realizes he probably should have called first, or something, but it had been hard to think.

“I, um,” he manages, and Bill just reaches out to enfold him in an awkward, all-elbows, lanky Bill-hug. It’s both good and bad, because Jon really needs the hug, but at the same time Bill still smells of the same shampoo and it’s a scent that Jon’s brain immediately associates with feeding, which he hasn’t done in far too long.

He squeezes his eyes closed and hugs back, and then Bill pulls him inside and closes the door and finally _looks_ at him, and Jon feels instantly guilty for showing up here unannounced after months of not speaking, with such transparent ulterior motives.

“Fuck. Jon, fuck.” Bill’s hand is back on his arm, pulling him in. “How long?”

“Seventeen days,” Jon croaks, because it’s not like he hasn’t been counting. Bill is already pushing his hair out of the way, like it hasn’t been forever since they’ve done this, pulling Jon along and backing into the wall.

Jon feels like he should say something first, at least the normal pleasantries that politeness dictates, but Bill’s hand is on the back of his neck and his pulse is beating strong and steady and Jon is so _hungry._

Bill exhales when Jon’s fangs sink in, a little breath of surprise like maybe he’s forgotten this part, but he doesn’t let go of Jon’s head and relaxes again in seconds, blood flowing easily onto Jon’s tongue.

He takes more than he should, more than he ever has before, but Bill doesn’t make a move to stop him, and Jon doesn’t even really think about it until he licks the puncture wounds closed and Bill stumbles a little when he tries to move, immediately laughing at himself for it.

“Shit,” Jon says, but Bill just waves him off, the same as always, and makes his way carefully to sit on the couch.

“It’s fine, it’s just like donating to the Red Cross. Orange juice and donuts, right? Blood sugar.” Jon finds orange juice in the fridge and pours a glass full, rifling through the cabinets and coming up empty on sugar before handing it over and hovering worriedly.

Bill drinks half of it and looks up at him, lips and eyes touched with a slightly sardonic edge. “Sit down, I’m not going to keel over. Do you have somewhere to crash tonight?”

Jon shrugs. “I was going to go home,” he says honestly, although he hadn’t thought about it until just now. “I haven’t been there in a while.”

“Stay,” Bill says, and it sounds decisive, more than an invitation. He stretches out on the couch and closes his eyes, cradling the juice glass in one hand. He smiles when he says, “I’ll make you breakfast in the morning.”

Jon snorts, but he ends up staying anyway.

* * *

“Seriously, you still haven’t told them?” Bill asks over breakfast the next morning. Breakfast for him, anyway, which is hash browns out of the box and an egg that had turned out halfway between fried and scrambled. Breakfast for Jon had taken place earlier, when Bill had woken him up fresh out of the shower, climbing on top of Jon and leaning down with the ends of his hair still dripping onto the blankets.

Jon doesn’t really want to talk about it, but Bill is ingenious in the most manipulative ways, completely devoid of cunning at the moments he would otherwise have been easy to resist.

“It hasn’t exactly come up,” he says, which is obviously ridiculous, because what are they going to do, ask him just out of curiosity if he’s one of the undead?

Bill is pushing bits of egg around on his plate, suddenly not meeting Jon’s eyes. “I’m sorry about dropping the ball on you,” he says, so quietly Jon has to strain to hear it. “I didn’t mean to, I just…I knew Tom was with you, so I figured…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jon says immediately, reaching out to touch the back of Bill’s hand. He isn’t holding a grudge; it’s not like he’d called Bill, either. He feels like a dick now for not asking earlier, though. “How are you?”

Bill shrugs, and mashes egg between the tines of his fork. “It’s cool. It’s over.” Which Jon had known, obviously, since Tom is no longer a member of the band, but hearing Bill say it that way makes it sound like the band is the least important part of the break-up. That in itself tells him a lot, because for as long as Jon has known him, there’s been nothing in Bill’s life more important to him than the Academy.

“Do you want…?” he starts, without actually thinking about what he’s offering, but Bill glances up to meet his eyes, startled, before smiling wryly and shaking his head.

“I’m not that much of a dick,” he says, and pushes his plate away, breakfast still only half-eaten. Bill eats like a bird, picky and distracted. “I’m not going to use my ex’s best friend for comfort sex.” He smirks a little, the humour back in his eyes. “Even if he is hot.”

“So hot,” Jon agrees, nodding. Bill laughs, and stands up to get another cup of coffee.

“God, it fucking sucked after you left,” Bill says suddenly, and Jon is surprised because he’s heard about Bill losing his lyrics book right before going into the studio, and the mad scramble to find a guitarist, and of course the thing with Tom, but he hadn’t associated all of that with his own departure. “Are you sure we can’t win you back?”

“Brendon makes really good oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,” Jon answers, and Bill laughs again, dumping his dishes into the sink.

“Seriously, you need to tell them,” Bill says, sitting back down at the table with the mug cradled comfortably in his hands. Jon bristles a little, his immediate reaction somewhere between defensive and hacked off. He’s ready to tell Bill that it’s none of his business how Jon lives his life, and he’s not the one who’s going to have to deal with the fallout, if there is any, but Bill just looks at him and Jon knows he’s right.

“They’re all in Vegas now,” Jon says, wincing a little at the obvious evasion, but Bill just rolls his eyes.

“They’re going to want you to come visit. Or they’re going to come here. Rumor has it you guys are attached at the hips.” Bill waggles his eyebrows and Jon is startled into laughter, which earns him a wide grin from Bill in return.

“I’ll tell them,” Jon promises. He has a week to work up the courage and practice saying it. Hopefully that will be enough.

Bill chips his thumbnail over his mug, picking at a bubble in the glaze. “Do you want someone with you when you do?” He’s not looking up as he says it, but when he does, Jon can see the honesty in his eyes.

Jon allows himself a minute to think it over seriously, imagine Bill’s steady presence in the background while he comes out of the vampiric closet to three guys he’s grown to love like brothers.

“No,” he says finally. He owes them that much, an honest explanation not hiding behind anyone else. Even Bill. He smiles, to show he’s still grateful for the offer. “Thanks, though.”

“What are friends for?” Bill asks rhetorically, and passes Jon his cup of coffee.

* * *

Jon tells them. He gets blank looks at first, which is hardly surprising, and then Brendon’s tentative, “Really?”

“Really,” Jon says solemnly. He shows them his teeth. He hadn’t actually known until then that Brendon’s eyes could get that wide.

Spencer asks a lot of polite questions about how it affects his life and how often he needs to feed and if there are any special considerations they need to take into account while on tour, all of which Jon answers as honestly as possible. Ryan seems a little withdrawn, but Jon thinks it’s more about the fact that he’s been keeping a secret from them than it is the vampire thing. Which is odd, when you think about it, but it’s Ryan.

Brendon is fascinated, which Jon sort of expected, and he lets Brendon look and very tentatively touch and then fold himself up into the chair across from the couch and keep staring while Jon talks with Spencer.

“So…how does it work?” Spencer asks finally. “The feeding thing?”

Jon clears his throat and forces himself to hold eye contact. “I usually…well, before, there was someone on tour. And when there wasn’t I still knew people…along the way.”

Spencer nods a little. He says, “Tom?”

Jon nods, and then adds, “And Bill.”

Ryan’s head goes up. “Bill knows?” he echoes, sharp around the edges. Jon just nods again.

“Are you going to need someone…” Spencer says carefully, sharing a glance with Ryan, “…on this next tour?”

Jon hesitates, but he’s promised himself he’ll be honest with them, so he nods again. Then he says hastily, “It doesn’t have to be someone on the tour, I mean, I worked it out before where I would meet people in the cities and stuff. No one has to…” He lets that hang, because they all know what he means.

Spencer rolls up his sleeves, looking eminently practical and a lot older than nineteen. “It’s not a big deal,” he says. “Right? It’s not like you’re killing us or anything.”

Jon blanches; so, he notices, does Brendon. “No,” he says hastily. “God no. You can talk to Bill if you want, he’s been with me the longest, but there’s not really much to it. It’s like, um, donating blood, I guess. It doesn’t take very long.”

Brendon is looking a great deal more nervous than he had at first, but Ryan is eyeing him speculatively now, and Spencer still seems to be taking things in stride. “We can take turns, right?” he asks, looking around at the others. “I mean, anyone who wants to. When you don’t have someone else.”

Ryan chews on his thumbnail contemplatively, then nods. Brendon bobs his head in agreement. Jon feels a rush of relief so strong that it’s like the floor has dropped out from underneath him. “Thanks,” he says sincerely, clenching his hands tight in his lap. “Seriously.”

Spencer just shrugs, another glance at Ryan saying he’s speaking for both of them. “No problem.”

* * *

They all try, but Jon ends up mostly with Spencer, which neither of them minds. Ryan is willing, but he has the same defensiveness that Tom has about it, tension in his shoulders when Jon touches him, like he can’t stand being that vulnerable and can’t quite bring himself to trust. Jon drinks from him a couple of times when Spencer is sick or worn out, but apart from that and after the first few times, he leaves Ryan alone.

Brendon is a surprise, and one Jon still doesn’t know how to deal with. He’d been gung-ho about it in the beginning, hopping into Jon’s lap and saying, “My turn!” when Jon had hesitantly asked, days of nothing but awed repetitions of, “You’re a vampire, that’s _so cool._ ”

When Jon had leaned in, though, he’d panicked and jerked back, laughing nervously and apologizing before saying it was cool and they could try again, but his entire body had been rigid and tense in Jon’s arms, sweat rising on his skin. Jon could practically smell the fear, and he’s never forced this on anyone, he won’t. Especially not a friend.

Brendon had babbled about it being okay for nearly two minutes while Jon soothed him and told him it was okay, they didn’t have to, and finally Spencer had cut in and told him to move, he’d do it. Brendon had gone limp with relief and Jon tried not to be upset, especially when he saw how guilty Brendon had looked and acted for the next few days, but it had still stung.

It still does, when he least expects it. He’s wrestles with Brendon on the floor of the cabin one day, and when he’s nearly pinned he bites the back of Brendon’s neck; just playing around, no fangs, and Brendon goes utterly, completely still. It takes Jon a few seconds to recognize the quivering for terror, and he apologizes, voice feeling like sawdust in his mouth, and goes off to his room.

He calls Tom but gets his voicemail, and then calls Bill without thinking about it, just needing to talk. After the initial exchange about touring and songwriting and being desperate for actual deep-dish, Jon ends up blurting it all out, the way Ryan still gets weird when it’s obvious that Jon needs to feed soon and Brendon’s irrational – or maybe not so irrational, honestly, and maybe that’s why it hurts – fear of him, and how Spencer is amazing but sometimes he just…

He doesn’t know how to finish that. He leaves it hanging, and Bill says, “When are they letting you leave?”

Jon rolls over, cradling the phone against his ear, squashed against the pillow. “I don’t know. We have a show later, we might take some time off then. Not a lot.”

“Come home,” Bill says, and it’s weird that both of them still think of the same place as home, even after years on the road. “Call me when you do.”

“Okay,” Jon says. He barely even has to think about it. “You might still be on tour.”

“We’ll work it out,” Bill says easily, shrugging it off. “Just call me. We’ll get pizza, you can bite me.”

It’s so ridiculous that Jon laughs, and promises again to visit. Bill bitches about sleeping on a bus and the fact that Siska is still from another planet, and Jon counters with stories about Ryan and Brendon arguing their way through every single rehearsal and the fact that none of them ever remembers to change the toilet paper roll. He’s just finished telling Bill about the new band Tom is in, and realizes after rambling for too long with no response from the other end that he’s maybe been a jerk to bring that up.

“Sorry,” he says awkwardly.

“You killed the mood, you bastard,” Bill tells him, but he doesn’t sound too upset, or if he is Jon can’t tell. “I need to go get myself a drink now, to drown the sorrow.”

“Shut up,” Jon laughs, anxiety disappearing as soon as it had come, and they hang up with mutual promises to call, which neither of them ever remembers to do, and a tentative date to meet up in Chicago.

Jon feels better than he has in weeks. He comes back out and finds Brendon curled tightly into a corner of the couch, looking up at him with big, guilty eyes. Jon ruffles his hair and plops down on the couch beside him, looking for the remote. “Want to watch a movie?” he asks, and Brendon practically leaps to take him up on it, cuddling close as if defying his own fears.

Spencer gives him a weird look when he joins them, but Jon just stretches out to watch Firefly and lets himself spend an idle moment counting the days between here and Chicago.

* * *

“It’s Jon,” Jon says when the speaker crackles, and there’s a distant echo of his name followed by a chorus of ‘hey’ in the background, which must mean he’s late for the party.

Mike meets him at the door with a beer in his hand, pulling Jon in for a hug. “Glad you could make it,” he says, and Jon grins, looking around the room – just Academy, he knows all of them but the new guitarist.

“JWalk!” Siska calls, claiming his own hug, grinning widely. “I saw pictures of you on the internet wearing rosettes, dude. Like, huge freaking pastel flowers.”

“Fuck off,” Jon laughs, and looks around the room. “Hey, where’s…?”

“Bill’s in the kitchen with Butcher, they’re making Cornish hens in your honour. Oh, and one made out of tofu, but I don’t know if it’s tofurkey if it’s supposed to be a Cornish hen. Tofornish hen?” Siska doesn’t look all that concerned with the answer. Jon is more concerned about whether smoke is about to start pouring from the open door to the kitchen.

“Oh Christ,” Jon says, covering his face with one hand. “I can’t believe you guys let them do this shit. Who’s supposed to be the responsible one now?”

“You’re the one who left us for a band younger and prettier,” Mike accuses, but his eyes are happy, and Jon can’t sense any resentment from anyone in the room, in spite of the fact that he’s now headlining sold-out stadium tours while they’re still playing clubs.

An arm wraps around his waist from behind, hand on his hip. Jon knows who it is without looking, would be able to tell by scent and feel alone even before he hears the voice. “Who’s younger and prettier?”

There is no way that Jon will ever get involved in a debutante contest between Bill Beckett and Spencer Smith. He values his balls too much. “Nobody,” he says easily, turning his head to catch Bill’s smile, the hair falling loose over his eyes. “It’s still you, Snow White.”

Bill’s smile grows wider, touching his whole face. “Come on,” he says, tugging Jon towards the kitchen. “Drinks are in the fridge.”

Butcher is wearing an apron, with no shirt on underneath it. Jon bites his knuckle to keep from laughing and then does it anyway, shoulders shaking. Butcher turns around and points an oven mitt-ed hand at him. “I’ve seen the rose pictures,” he says. “And you were wearing makeup. Don’t even front.”

“We made green bean casserole,” Bill tells him, winding his way between them to the counter. He hops up and smiles at Jon again, relaxed and easy. There’s more to it than just a few drinks; he seems happy. “I’m glad you made it.”

“I am, too,” Jon says, and then he gets called back into the living room to talk about the tour and the new band and hear about all of the misadventures of TAI on the road. By the time Bill proudly announces dinner, he’s gotten to know Michael a little better.

Jon had been wary at first, not sure how to greet someone who’d taken the place of his best friend, but Michael seems like a decent enough guy, and Jon can tell by the way he interacts with Bill that he hasn’t taken Tom’s place in every way, just onstage. He’s also weirdly shy and still not quite at ease with the rest of them, and Jon finds himself going out of his way to include him, especially when they all start talking about ‘old times,’ often over Bill’s protests of, “Hey, that is not the way it happened!”

Dinner is mostly a free-for-all, and Siska hesitates for a second before offering Jon a plate. “Do you need…?” he asks, and glances quickly at Michael before making a hand sign strongly reminiscent of Gabe and the hallucinogenic cobra, which Jon interprets to mean, ‘to go suck on Bill for a while.’

Jon just shakes his head and laughs. “Fuck no,” he says, taking the plate. “I want some fucking tofornish hen.”

“Dirty,” Mike says, and they all start laughing, the volume level instantly leaping as they all jostle companionably for food and fresh drinks.

Jon has missed this. He never thinks about it when he’s with the guys, Ryan and Spencer and Brendon, because they’re fun in a whole different way, but it’s been a while since he got drunk out of his mind in a room full of too-loud laughter and everyone talking incoherently over top of each other.

At some point Michael leaves, and then it’s just the five of them, almost like old times except for the hole where Tom ought to be. He’s sure Bill’s feeling it too, because he moves to the couch and curls up next to Jon, bare feet tucked under his thigh. If this had been them back on tour, Bill would have been at Tom’s side, or even in his lap. Jon makes a note to call him, catch up. They’ve missed each other too often lately.

He’s well past buzzed when Siska finally leaves, which seems to be the cue for Mike and Butcher as well. The place seems empty once they’re gone, but it’s a nice quiet, comfortable.

He stretches his legs out on the couch and wriggles his toes, smiling fuzzily when Bill lands on him and leans back against his chest. “I am sooo drunk,” he proclaims, tipping his head back against Jon’s shoulder and smiling with his eyes closed. “Don’t bite me tonight, I’ll make you sick.”

“You’ll make me drunk,” Jon corrects, picking flyaway strands of Bill’s hair out of his face. “And I’m already drunk.”

Bill cracks an eye open, grinning slightly. “Oh, well in that case,” he says. “Bite all you want. I’ll make more.” He starts giggling, high and bright, and Jon has the sudden, stupid urge to hug him. Touring with Panic should have made him immune to bright-eyed boys with beautiful smiles, but it totally hasn’t. Not even close.

“You’re staying, right?” Bill asks, and Jon hums noncommittally and shrugs beneath the weight of Bill’s head on his shoulder. “Stay.”

“Okay,” Jon agrees, because he’s pretty drunk, and he can always go see his cat tomorrow. Anyway, he’s happy on the couch right now. He doesn’t really feel like moving.

* * *

Spencer is curled up against his side in Jon’s narrow bunk, one hand on his chest, his blood still warm and rich on Jon’s tongue. He’s not sure when they’d decided to do it like this, just that one day Jon had asked and Spencer had suggested they go back to the bunks – maybe because he’d been tired, maybe because Ryan sometimes gets weird about it – and they’ve kept it that way ever since.

It’s different like this, in ways Jon isn’t completely sure he’s ready to think about. Feeding has never been a turn-on for him, but it is intimate; he knows what Spencer’s skin tastes like, clean and fresh out of the shower and sweat-salty after a show and stale but sweet in the morning when he’s just woken up. He knows the feel of Spencer’s body under his hands, especially the curve of his back where Jon always holds on to support him, just in case he gets dizzy.

Sometimes he holds lower than he means to, and is so focused on feeding that he doesn’t notice, until he has Spencer’s blood welling under his teeth, that his fingertips are resting on the shallow swell of Spencer’s ass. He doesn’t know if Spencer notices those times as well, but sometimes his breath comes faster than it should, heartbeat drumming against Jon’s chest where they’re pressed together.

One time Jon had pulled away before he’d taken enough, because Spencer’s shirt had ridden up enough that there’d been bare warm skin under his fingertips, and Spencer had made a little noise in his throat, almost like a moan, and Jon had realized in shock that he’d been getting hard.

What’s more, he thinks that maybe Spencer had been, too.

It gets even more confusing when they stay like this afterwards, Jon blood-flushed and sated, Spencer quietly content next to him, fingers playing with the buttons on Jon’s shirt. They’re all tactile, all four of them, but he and Spencer have been more so than usual, lately, and the touches are softer, more lingering.

He’s sure he isn’t the only one to have noticed, either. Zack had been completely neutral when he’d asked who was sharing rooms in the last hotel, but usually he hands one key to Jon and one to Spencer, because having Ryan and Brendon together in close quarters after a show often spells disaster, and this time he hadn’t.

Even more telling, Ryan has started giving them space. Ryan. Giving Spencer space.

Spencer stirs beside him, recalling Jon’s wandering attention, and one of the buttons halfway down his shirt pops undone beneath Spencer’s fingers. “Can I ask you something?” he says quietly, breath warm on Jon’s neck. He pushes the button through the hole again, and then undoes the next one down.

Jon knows that tone of voice, neutral and respectful, carefully devoid of curiosity. He’s heard it from a lot of people once they find out what he is. In all honesty, he’s surprised it’s taken Spencer this long to ask. “Go ahead,” he encourages, turning his head a little so he can see Spencer’s face, at least what he can make out in the dim light.

There’s still hesitation, but not too much. “Were you born like this?” Spencer asks finally, looking up to meet Jon’s eyes.

Jon nods, and they’re close enough that Spencer can probably feel it, even if he can’t see. “It’s genetic,” he answers, keeping his voice low, both so that Spencer knows he’s not upset, and because even though he would tell the other guys if they asked, this feels private, with the two of them here. “My mother.”

Spencer undoes two more buttons, and then does them back up, one-handed with clever fingers. “I’m glad,” he says, and then looks up to meet Jon’s curious look, instantly apologetic. “I mean, not that you’re…not that it’s harder for you, and all. But that you’ve always been this way. I’m glad it wasn’t a traumatic experience or anything.”

Jon moves his arm enough to squeeze him a little. “No trauma,” he promises. “The whole turning-someone thing is just a myth. The only thing that would happen if I fed blood to you, most likely, is that you’d throw it back up.” He tweaks Spencer’s nose, feeling like he needs to lighten things up a bit, and is rewarded with Spencer’s scrunched-up smile.

“Can I ask you something else?” Spencer asks, and continues when Jon nods. “How do you choose people? I mean, is it just whoever’s available? Like us?”

 _Like me_ , is what Jon hears between the words, and he chooses his answer carefully. “People I trust,” he says slowly, his fingertips brushing loose ends of Spencer’s hair. “If I have a choice. People who react the right way. Not that there’s a wrong way, it’s just…some people are more comfortable with it than others.” Bill, not Tom. Spencer, not Ryan. Others before them, all the way back to earlier bands and his school friends, and his mother before anyone else, gentle and protective.

Spencer looks considering. The buttons are all through their holes, done up when Jon hadn’t been paying attention. “I’m glad you told us,” he says finally, teeth gripping his lower lip in a nervous habit that Jon shouldn’t be paying such close attention to.

Jon pulls him into a hug, squeezing gently and too aware of the tickling strands of Spencer’s hair, the smell of his cologne, the warm weight of his body. He closes his eyes and says, “Me too.”

* * *

Bill answers the phone by saying, “If you call me any more this month, I’m making you pay half my phone bill.”

Jon’s smile cracks through his pensiveness a little, the playful lilt of Bill’s voice setting him more at ease than he has been all day. “I don’t call you nearly as much as other people do. Why isn’t Gabe paying your phone bill?”

Bill’s voice is self-satisfied and smug. “I make him pay in other ways, don’t worry.”

If Jon didn’t know that Bill meant dinner every time they were in the same city, and real, fresh, New York bagels, he might be jealous. There’s a twinge anyway, quick and twisting, banished before he can think about it too much. “What are you doing?”

“Grocery shopping,” Bill answers, a little distant and accompanied by the rustle of paper bags. “I got bored, and we were running low on junk food. What’s the point of being in a rock band if you don’t have a cabinet full of snack cakes and fruit roll-ups?”

“I don’t know,” Jon answers honestly, because that’s the staple of his diet more often than it should be, at least the part of his diet that doesn’t come from Spencer. Speaking of. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“I knew you were calling me with ulterior motives,” Bill responds. There’s the slightest hint of a pout in his voice, but nothing serious behind it. “Shoot.”

Jon hesitates, framing the question carefully in his mind. He’d thought about it before calling, of course, hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it for days now, but he still wants to say this the right way. “Does it…what’s it like for you, when I…?” He doesn’t finish it, but then he doesn’t really have to. Bill intuits easily, and there’s only one thing Jon is ever this tentative in talking about.

“Bite me? Kind of like a needle, I guess. Drawing blood. I can’t really feel it, I just know what you’re doing, so I guess that…I imagine I can feel it?” Bill sounds musing, like he’s never really thought about it before, although Jon finds that hard to believe. He can’t imagine that Tom hadn’t asked the same question. Then again, Tom already knew, so maybe he never had. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to know. “Why?”

This is the tricky part, because he doesn’t want Bill to take it the wrong way, but he still needs to know. “Are you ever…is it a turn-on?” He winces as he says it, sure that if he isn’t ruining their easy dynamic with this, he’s at least making it about ten times more awkward.

“Jon Walker,” Bill drawls, and the tone of his voice makes Jon wince all over again. “Who are you sucking on?”

“Just tell me,” Jon rushes, because he’s not above begging, but he’d rather not. Bill has a tendency to gloat. “Are you ever turned on?”

“By you?” Bill sounds amused, which is good, and Jon is opening his mouth to hastily reassure him right as Bill continues speaking. “Not really. I mean, I guess it’s like when you’re necking with someone. It’s not sexy just by the feel of it, but it’s the idea too, that someone is doing that. I guess it depends on the person too. But yeah, it’s like…like when someone you’re with bites and sucks and whatever. Like getting a hickey. Only without the part where your bandmates notice and make fun of you for days. Until they find out your other bandmate is the one who gave it to you, and then they make fun of _both_ of you for days.”

“Bill,” Jon interrupts, because he can recognize the warning signs of Bill going off on a tangent, and he’d really like to set his mind at ease over this before he loses any more sleep or does something stupid the next time he has Spencer underneath him.

“That’s it, really,” Bill finishes smoothly, without a hint of apology. “I mean, I guess it _could_ be, depending on who you were with and how you felt about them…again, it’s like necking, sometimes you’re into it and sometimes you’re really not, it’s just what comes before the sex. Which brings us back to who you’re sucking on.”

Jon doesn’t really want to tell him. It’s not like he couldn’t figure it out, but what’s going on with him and Spencer feels private, even if he really does owe it to Bill to explain why he’s asking. He’s also not sure how Bill will react, although he doesn’t even know why he thinks Bill would have any sort of reaction at all. He feels guilty for saying it out loud, guilty for even thinking it, without really knowing why.

Finally, he plucks up the courage and says, “Spen-”

“Shit,” Bill says.

Jon stops mid-word, the first tinge of panic starting to rise. “What?”

“I got honey-roasted. Peanuts. I thought I’d gotten…wait, what were you saying?” Bill sounds distracted, probably weighing the effort involved in going back out to get peanuts against the effort involved in nagging someone else to do it for him. Jon is familiar enough with the process to know which will probably win out. Sometimes with Bill it’s all about the challenge and eventual victory.

Jon expels breath in a gust. “Nothing. That’s all I wanted to know. Market research.”

Bill makes an amused sound, a little snort of a laugh. “Well, consider that the opinion from the produce department.”

“Thanks,” Jon says, meaning it.

He can hear Bill’s smile through the phone line. “Anytime.”

* * *

Spencer kisses him.

Jon had known something was off, he just hadn’t known what. The blood hadn’t tasted any different, but Spencer’s breathing had been shallow and fast, his pulse drumming against Jon’s lips, and when he’d raised his head Spencer had looked at him with dilated eyes and leaned in.

It’s a surprise, which is why it takes him a second to react, and by that time Spencer has drawn away a little, watching him worriedly. “I…” Spencer says awkwardly, his hands curling and uncurling nervously. “I’m sorry, I should have…”

“No, no,” Jon assures him, and when Spencer doesn’t look all that assured, he pulls him back in. “No, it’s okay,” and presses their lips together again.

Spencer’s mouth is warm and soft, his kisses tentative, but so very sweet beneath all of that. Jon is kissing to reassure, and Spencer is lapping it up, the edge of anxiety blending into eagerness.

It’s not until he’s on top of Spencer in the narrow bunk, still kissing, that he realizes with a shock that this is all wrong. He’s sure he wanted this at some point, knows he’s thought about it, thought about Spencer, but right now even with Spencer’s warm body beneath his and Spencer’s soft hair tickling his fingers, it’s not Spencer he’s thinking about. And that’s enough to make him stop, take a breath and calm both of them down, pulling away but still holding on so that Spencer doesn’t take this the wrong way.

“Hey,” Jon says quietly, hands stroking Spencer’s pale arms. “I’m sorry, I can’t, it’s not…”

He stops before he says it, but Spencer knows anyway, the corner of his mouth twitching up a little wryly, a little sadly. “It’s not me?”

Whatever else, Spencer is one of his best friends, and Jon loves him, without question. “It’s not…I just don’t…” He doesn’t know how to say it, so he just takes Spencer’s face in his hands and kisses him again. “Spencer.”

Spencer smiles, almost. “I know.” He does, too, or at least thinks he does; Jon can see it in his expression. “I just thought maybe…”

“I know. I know, me too.” Jon impulsively peppers Spencer’s lips with kisses before pulling him into a hug. “I’m sorry, I suck.”

Spencer just hugs him back, and says against his ear, “We’re still okay, right? I didn’t screw this up.”

“No.” Jon hugs him tighter, then leans back enough to rest their foreheads together and cradle Spencer’s cheeks in his hands. “We’re totally okay. Better than okay.”

Spencer blows out a breath, and gently pulls back out of Jon’s hold. “I’m just gonna…” he says vaguely, waving his arm in the direction of the rest of the bus. Jon nods, and Spencer stands up, tugging his shirt back down. Jon looks at him and wonders what the hell is wrong with him, and he’s not even going to pretend that this is about having seen what the aftermath of a romantic break-up does to a band.

Spencer hesitates, looking at him, and then says, “I just…you’ve been so happy lately. And I know you’re not seeing anybody, so we all thought…” He shrugs, ducking his head and releasing another breath before looking up again to say, “I just thought it was me.”

Jon aches, and hates himself more than he possibly ever has in his life. He reaches out a hand, and says, “Spence,” but Spencer is shaking his head and taking another step away.

“No, it’s okay. You’re right. And it’s better this way, than if we’d…and you’d decided then. It’s better. We’re still friends. Right?”

“Always,” Jon says with a dry throat, and Spencer smiles at him, stuffs his hands into his pockets and walks away.

* * *

Tom calls him within a day.

“How did you find out about this?” Jon asks incredulously, tucking his phone under his chin and trapping it there against his shoulder while he makes a quick escape from the lounge where they could be overheard.

“Come on, you know how fast gossip like this travels. The first time I hooked up with Bill I had threatening voicemail messages on my phone from Gabe and Travis before I even woke up the next morning, followed by the weirdest conversation I have ever had with Patrick in my life.”

Jon does remember that. He remembers being much more amused by it at the time, though. Especially Patrick looking tiny but determinedly fierce. “Travis didn’t exactly threaten.” From what Jon could recall, he’d rambled on for five minutes about karma and destiny and friendship. Tom had let Jon listen in.

“Not in so many words, but it was the underlying message that was important. The threat was _implied._ ” There’s a clatter of dishes on the other end of the line; Jon can picture Tom wandering around tidying while they talk. “What’s up with you and Spencer?”

“Nothing,” Jon answers. “Seriously, how did you know?”

“I do still talk to them sometimes, you know.” There’s another pause, this one punctuated by what sounds like a cabinet door closing, and then Tom says, “Spencer called me.”

Jon rubs at his forehead and wonders if he’s screwed up. It seems likely. Besides that, there’s no way he can just say, ‘I think I might have a thing for your ex,’ because friends don’t do shit like that to each other. “Is he okay?”

“Just worried about you, whether he fucked anything up. I said it wasn’t likely.” Tom sounds utterly unconcerned, at least on the surface, but there’s something else underneath it, something that makes Jon stop and rewind.

“Tom,” he says, hesitantly because he could be wrong, but he doesn’t think either Brendon or Ryan call Tom all that often, not even when they’re worried about having upset Jon. “You and Spence?”

There’s a long pause, and then the familiar snap-click of a lighter, another pause for the first drag. “Are you reconsidering?”

“No.” He’s not, he just hadn’t expected this. He can’t remember anything that would have ever given it away, not from either of them. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He can almost hear Tom’s shrug. “It seemed like there was something between the two of you. Or there was going to be. I didn’t want to get in the middle of that.”

Jon sits down and tucks his legs up under him, toes curled warm against his thighs. “There’s not,” he says honestly. “He’s great, I mean, I like him, but no. You should go for it.” He feels even less of a twinge than he’s expected when he says it, considering how close he and Spencer have gotten. It’s Tom, though, so that’s something. That’s worth a lot.

“Thanks.” Tom blows smoke too close to the receiver; Jon can hear the crackle of static that comes along with his exhale. Now that he’s thinking about it, guilt is starting to eat at him, enough that he finally has to take a deep breath and just spit it out.

“How upset would you be,” he asks, wincing even as he rushes the words, slurs them together in his haste, “if I said I was thinking about fucking around with one of your exes?”

This time the silence seems stretched out, nerve-wracking enough to make Jon itch for a drag off of Tom’s cigarette. He wonders if he would be allowed, right now. Tom finally comes back with, “I guess I don’t have to ask which one, do I?” Jon shakes his head, not certain yet of his voice or what words he would use, and Tom says, “Fuck, Jon.”

“I didn’t know,” he says, trying to make a case for himself before Tom condemns him out of hand. “Not until Spence…not until then.”

Tom is quiet again. Jon can see him, in his mind’s eye, smoking faster now as he thinks. Tom is a laidback kind of guy, it’s part of why he and Jon get along as well as they do, but Tom can get worked up about a few things, and Jon thinks Bill is probably still one of them.

“Great timing,” Tom says finally, a little cutting. “What with me asking for your bandmate and all.” He doesn’t sound angry, exactly. Just a little keyed-up, which Jon can hardly blame him for, but not like he’s been hurt by the question. Or maybe that’s just Jon’s own wishful thinking.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says. He doesn’t think he could pour any more apologetic sincerity into this conversation if he tried. It sucks, what he’s doing sucks for both of them, but he can’t seem to keep himself from doing it. More importantly, he doesn’t think he can stop himself from doing other things, once they’re all on tour together this summer. “Just say the word, and I won’t.”

There’s more silence, but it’s not the smoking kind. Jon knows Tom well enough to hear the patterns in his breathing, and this isn’t the pause created by a drag off a cigarette. Finally Tom says, “You’ve got it bad, haven’t you? Or you wouldn’t have said anything.”

Sometimes Jon resents that Tom knows him so well, but most of the time he’s just grateful. “Pretty bad,” he admits.

Tom sighs. “Yeah, I remember.” Jon can’t help the wince; he remembers too. “It’s not like I can say you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” Tom points out. “I’m not crazy about it, but if you want him, I’m not going to get in the way.”

Jon hadn’t realized he’d stopped breathing until he starts again. “Thanks,” he manages, the sound tight in his chest. “Really.”

There’s a tiny break, like the crest after an inhalation, and Tom says, “This isn’t a vampire thing, is it? Some kind of predator-prey bonding thing?”

Jon’s breath rushes out of him, shocked. “Jesus Christ,” he exclaims. “Fuck no.” He sincerely hopes not, anyway, but all signs point to this being a perfectly normal infatuation. It’s not like anyone who’d ever really looked at Bill could blame him.

“Just checking,” Tom says. “Call me when you get to Chicago, I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

* * *

Spencer is in the lounge when Jon comes out looking for coffee, hunched over on the couch playing with something. It’s a vampire Pez dispenser, the one Brendon tried to fill with red-hots because strawberry Pez didn’t look crimson enough. Spencer pulls the head all the way back with his thumb, and then lets it snap forward with a loud ‘clack.’ Jon winces.

Ryan’s beaten him to the last of the coffee, putting the empty pot back without looking at all repentant. Jon is halfway expecting some sort of confrontation, a glare or a hissed warning to _fix it_ , because he knows Ryan and Spencer, and there’s no way Ryan doesn’t know or at the very least suspect by now. But Ryan just walks past him, with a glance that doesn’t imply anything at all, and Jon realizes that maybe Ryan trusts him now to fix it without needing to be told.

He gives up on coffee and goes to sit next to Spencer, close enough that their thighs touch. Spencer keeps playing, the snap-crack of the Pez dispenser loud in the silence. Jon nudges him after a minute, looking for a way to open up conversation and finally going with, “Hey.”

“Hey.” Spencer still doesn’t glance over, but after another few seconds he sets the toy aside with a sigh.

There’s something different about Spencer, and it takes Jon a second to figure out that it’s the tufts of his hair, wound into strands. He smells different too, floral instead of herbal, and Jon leans in to sniff, takes a stiff lock of hair and tugs gently. “Brendon?”

Spencer’s mouth quirks, the beginning of a wry smile. “He wanted to see if it could curl.”

Jon snorts, imagining Spencer with a halo of ringlets, and wonders if they’ll be fast enough to upload photographic evidence, should Brendon succeed. “No luck?”

Spencer shakes his head, solemn. “My follicles resist him better than I do.”

He’s not sure what prompts it, the way Spencer’s eyes aren’t dancing the way they should be, or the fact that he isn’t leaning automatically into Jon’s space, but he doesn’t question, just says impulsively, “Come to Chicago with me.”

Spencer glances sideways at him, like he’s trying to decide what Jon means by that. Jon hadn’t really thought it through before he’d spoken, but he forges ahead before Spencer can say no.

“We have time before the tour, you can take a few days and still go home to see your family before we leave. We can see the bean, I’ll buy you something at Ghirardelli.” He’s not above playing to Spencer’s weak points. “Think of the shopping opportunities.”

“Why?” Spencer asks, like he expects for there to be a catch, or for Jon to be using this as an apology. It is, in a way, but it’s mostly that Jon misses Spencer being happy, and he wants that back. It would be a nice surprise for Tom, too, when he comes to pick Jon up at the airport. And if Tom is the one to make Spencer smile again, Jon won’t begrudge him that.

“I told you,” Jon says with a soft smile. “I want to be the one to show it to you.”

Spencer looks askance at him again, eyes weighing the decision. Then he shrugs a little, but afterwards his shoulders don’t slump as much as they had, and he’s almost smiling. “Okay.”

* * *

The summer tour had seemed like the perfect time to feel things out, to see if Bill was interested and make the first move. They’d be spending weeks together on tour, with their own separate spaces in case it didn’t go well, but in close enough quarters to get things going if it did. The timing couldn’t have been better.

What Jon hadn’t factored into this plan was that they were touring with Cobra Starship as well as the Academy, and with the Cobra came Gabe Saporta.

It’s not that Jon thinks something might be going on, because he knows better. Bill and Gabe have never been lovers, they’re just very close friends. Close, in this instance, meaning ‘attached at the hip.’

The first few days are hectic anyway, and Jon is perfectly content to bide his time. He doesn’t even need to seek Bill out, really, because he has Spencer when he needs to feed, and enough going on with his own band and reuniting with so many friends to keep him busy. He keeps expecting that after the first flush of being together again, things will settle down and he’ll actually have a chance to talk to Bill without Gabe being right there next to him.

He thinks for a wild second that it might be deliberate, one night when he walks into the lounge on the Academy bus and sees Bill in Gabe’s lap, draped over the back of the chair, Gabe’s fingers curved over his hip. Gabe gives him a little wave, with a smile that looks purely evil and gleaming eyes, and Jon is almost convinced that Gabe is fucking with him on purpose, until he remembers that Gabe is a kinky motherfucker who fucks with everyone, whether he means to or not.

Bill goes without protest when Gabe tugs him down further, resettling across Gabe’s chest while he and Siska discuss virtual reality games and Cheetos, and Jon leaves when he sees Gabe’s fingers tracing an infinity loop on Bill’s thigh.

Distraction comes in the unexpected form of Pete Wentz, who has missed them all – but especially Ryan – and has always been cool with Jon, ever since he first found out.

“Walker,” he calls, stepping onto their bus like he owns it, which is pretty much par for the course considering that he owns _them._ “How’s my favourite bloodsucker of the night?”

Jon fishes a bottle of water from the refrigerator and tosses it over. “Hey,” Spencer warns, taking a seat on the couch and putting his hand down on the cushion next to him, saving a place for Jon. “I wouldn’t call him names, I’ve seen those teeth.”

Pete just grins, displaying some impressive teeth of his own. “I have it on good authority that vampires will never hurt me,” he announces, sitting in the comfortable chair and wrapping an arm around Ryan, who balances on the armrest beside him. It’s so strongly reminiscent of Bill and Gabe that it startles Jon for a moment, but then the moment passes and Ryan is still Ryan, allowing himself to be touched but holding himself just slightly apart.

Pete wants to hear all of their songs, even the ones they’ve rejected. Twice. They play all of the songs they’ve finished and some they haven’t, stuff they’re just experimenting with to see how it sounds. Butcher shows up halfway through their impromptu set and takes a seat at the fold-out table, watching Spencer’s hands and bobbing his head in rhythm when they repeat something enough times for him to follow it.

“Jesus, what is that, like, a samba rhythm?” Pete asks when Spencer and Brendon go off on one of their improvs, matching each other measure for measure and changing it around just to see who can keep up. “Patrick would know. You should play that for him, he’d get a kick out of it.”

“Five measures of nine-eight,” Ryan answers. He’s been keeping track, Jon knows, soaking it up and trying to match it with other songs inside his head. Sometimes he just sits back and lets Brendon and Spencer play, waiting for them to shake something loose he can work with. “Then four-four, then five-eight, then back to nine-eight.”

“Hey,” Butcher says, the first time he’s spoken up since he arrived, and his fingers do something complicated on the tabletop that has Spencer cocking his head and Brendon’s fingers twitching over his strings.

Jon looks up to see that even more people have gathered; a few from Gym Class and Ryland, who folds himself up into the small space beside Jon to listen in. Jon’s eyes sweep the small crowd without his permission, but Bill hasn’t shown up. Unsurprisingly, neither has Gabe.

“Play it again. Hey wait, wait, hold up,” Brendon interrupts, practically vibrating with the energy of performance, his fingers picking restlessly over the muted strings. “Jon, get your…yeah. Again.”

Jon settles into playing again and focuses on the music.

* * *

Somewhere in the middle of Europe, there’s an attack on their bus.

The attack comes in the form of four-fifths of the Academy, armed with kitchen utensils and streaked with war paint that looks suspiciously like the container of make-up which went missing from Ryan’s dressing room during their last performance. Judging from Ryan’s squawk, he thinks so too.

Butcher leads the way, with a throat-curdling battle cry that ends with “Give us Jon Walker!” and a complicated martial arts maneuver, drumsticks in both hands.

Spencer is the first to leap to his defense, snatching up a plate from lunch and holding it from him like a shield. “Never!” he cries, and the battle is under way.

Jon isn’t sure whether he’s allowed to fight in his own defense or not, seeing as he’s the one being fought over. He didn’t put up much of a fight when Panic stole him in the first place, it hardly seems fair to start now. Besides which, it’s sort of entertaining to just stand in the midst of the melee like a damsel in distress, waiting for one side to prove victorious.

It doesn’t happen quite that way. Instead, Bill sneaks up behind him while the others are distracted, pulls Jon’s hands behind his back and whispers, “You’re my prisoner now.”

Mike and Ryan have faced off with pillows, and Brendon and Siska are in the middle of what looks like a slow-motion kung-fu fight, or possibly just a reenactment of The Matrix with the addition of pasta forks and the remote control for the DVD player.

“Am I allowed to scream for help?” Jon asks. Bill’s hold on his wrists is gentle, but he’s started nudging Jon towards the door, and Jon doesn’t think anyone else has noticed yet.

“If you want,” Bill agrees graciously, tugging Jon safely to the side as Ryan’s pillow goes flying. “It won’t matter, no one will be able to save you.” There’s laughter in the words, and Jon can see the sparkle in his eyes without having to look.

Brendon finally sees what’s happening and makes a desperate dive towards him, his drawn-out “Noooooo,” a wail of anguish. Siska stabs one of the pasta forks dramatically through his armpit, and Brendon performs a death scene worthy of Shakespeare while Ryan goes down under a buffeting storm of pillow swings. Spencer is the last one standing, and he looks helplessly between Jon and Butcher, who is twirling both drumsticks and grinning manically as he blocks the way.

“Take that, Ryan Rossy!” Bill shouts triumphantly as they tumble down the steps. “We have been avenged!”

Mike swings an arm over Jon’s shoulders and steadies him when Bill trips and nearly dislocates Jon’s arm. “Steady there,” he comments, pointing them towards the Academy bus. “No abusing the prisoner.”

Jon laughs, shifting into the embrace and feeling Bill’s grip on his wrists loosen in response. “I take it I’m your hostage?”

“Damn right you are,” Mike agrees. Butcher and Siska jog up to meet them, out of breath. Siska sticks his tongue out and crosses his eyes, and Butcher offers him a high five that Bill releases him to return. “We’ve won you back fair and square.”

Bill’s head tips onto his shoulder as they walk, loose and relaxed. He peeks up through his hair to meet Jon’s eyes, grinning, and says, “Let’s celebrate.”

* * *

Jon wakes up with the worst hangover he’s had in years banging around in his skull, and so tangled in the sheets that he can’t find his way out when he tries weakly to flail for the bottle of water that he hopes is on the night stand.

Only there isn’t a night stand, and he’s not alone. It takes an effort to crack both eyes open, but he finally manages, and finds Bill curled next to him, hair spread in artless disarray across the pillow. Jon closes his eyes again and tries not throw up before he remembers what he did last night.

There’s make-up smeared down his arms, and upon further examination, his chest as well. He doesn’t remember putting any on, but the source is hardly a mystery, since Bill is painted with the same colors in bright streaks over every inch of pale skin Jon can see. Jon is also, from what he can tell, wearing a toga. Made out of a bed sheet.

Bill stirs beside him, weakly blowing hair out of his face and greeting Jon with a sleepy smile. Bill has never, to Jon’s knowledge, had an actual hangover, of the kind Jon is currently gritting his teeth trying to stave off. He has an unnaturally balanced metabolism that allows him to be drunk off his ass the night before, and fresh as a daisy the next morning. Jon is fairly certain you have to sell your soul in order to achieve that.

Jon unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth, which tastes as disgusting as he currently feels, and prepares to say something like, “Why are we wearing togas?” Because Bill’s has slipped further, but it still matches the twisted drape of the sheet covering Jon’s torso.

Before he can speak, though, Bill pushes the hair back from his face and rolls over onto his back, displaying the long exposed line of his throat, and what Jon actually says is, “Fuck.”

Bill’s neck is covered in bruises, a fresh-blooming ring of blue and dark purple around his throat, and Jon is pretty damn sure he’s the one who put them there. He sees Bill frown in confusion, then swallow, and his eyes widen as he gently touches his neck. “Oh.”

“Jesus.” Jon struggles to get his arm free of its swaddling, traces the ink-dark stains bleeding down over Bill’s collarbone, and swallows. “What the fuck did I do to you?”

Bill tilts his head to one side, cracking his neck. His smile is mischief and laughter, and his eyes are sparkling. “I think, from what I remember, we were testing your theory on hickeys and biting and vampires being a turn-on.”

Jon’s heart is beating far too fast, and his fingertips are still on Bill’s skin. “What did we decide?” he asks, because he honestly doesn’t remember. He remembers the heat of Bill’s skin, and the taste of his sweat on Jon’s lips, and the tang of alcohol-laden blood on his tongue, but not that. Not anything that had come after.

Bill’s lips curl up, slow and sexy. “I’m still in my toga,” he points out. “You can’t have been _that_ good.”

Jon blinks, and then laughs and tries halfheartedly to hit him with a pillow. The movement sloshes his brain around on the inside of his skull, and Bill laughs and climbs over him when Jon groans. “I’m going to shower,” he says, and kisses Jon’s forehead in between his splayed fingers.

* * *

Jon stays in Bill’s bunk for as long as he can stand it, before finally getting up to relieve the pressure on his full bladder. When he staggers out into the lounge a few minutes later, he’s greeted with a cacophony of catcalls and applause.

He suddenly wishes he’d just stayed in bed a while longer.

“Jon Walker,” Siska whistles. “Damn, man.” He’s on the floor next to Butcher, who gives him two thumbs up and a wink, both of them still lounging in pajamas over cartons of orange juice. Mike is sprawled out on the couch, shaking with laughter and obviously nursing a hangover of his own.

Jon’s eyes track to Bill, who is perched on the counter with his arms and legs wrapped around Gabe, loose shirt cut too low to hide a single one of the marks on his neck. Bill props his chin on Gabe’s shoulder and smiles at him.

“So Jon,” Gabe says conversationally, and Jon knows better than to trust casual statements when they come from Gabe, especially with regard to Bill. “I feel like it’s time you and I had the talk about young William’s virtue, and how you should still treat him with respect and kindness.”

Bill nods solemnly in agreement. Jon wants to say he hasn’t done anything worth getting this speech for, but a lot of the night is rather fuzzy, his arms are still streaked with Bill’s war paint make-up, and he’s currently wearing someone else’s boxers because he woke up wrapped in a bed sheet toga and can’t find his own. The ground he stands on is shaky at best. And he definitely remembers Bill’s skin.

“As much as I want to have this talk with you,” Jon says, which sends Mike into peals of giggles behind him, “I should probably let my band know that I’m not dead.” He pauses, listening to the ringing in his skull, like a sledgehammer and a big brass gong. “Not yet, anyway.”

Butcher intervenes on his behalf, unexpected compassion for which Jon is sincerely grateful. “Let him recover before you bring out the shotgun, Gabe,” he says, and gets up to open the door. Mike hides under his pillow from the stream of bright sunlight.

Jon cringes as well, but it’s either face the sunshine or face Gabe, and the sunlight is less intimidating. He flees.

The rest of the guys are already up when he drags himself in, feeling like he’s actually climbed out of a coffin this time and ready to fall right back into it. There’s a load of laundry on his bunk, though, clean and unfolded, which he hadn’t had time to put away last night before his abduction.

He’s considering just dumping the whole mess on the floor and apologizing to the guys for it later, but Ryan takes pity on him, appearing at his elbow to survey the situation and wordlessly twitching open the curtain to his own bunk.

“Bless you,” Jon says fervently, and falls back into unconsciousness.

* * *

Jon wakes up again around noon, feeling marginally more human. The first thing he does, after considering Gabe and the probability that he’d be jumped by someone he knows immediately upon setting foot outside, is to call Tom.

Tom’s phone rings for a while, long enough that Jon isn’t sure he’s going to answer, but then he picks up with, “Wild night, huh?”

Someone’s told on him. Jon doesn’t feel like he should be all that surprised. “I don’t remember doing anything,” he says honestly, the memory of the toga twisted around him like a shield. As drunk as they’d both been, he can’t imagine deciding to put something that complicated back _on_ after sex. And he finds it hard to believe that he’d forget something like that. Forget Bill.

Tom sounds more amused than angry, which at least makes the sick pit of guilt in Jon’s stomach ease somewhat. “I think you probably didn’t, then,” he comments, and after a brief pause, adds, “Is your ass sore?”

Jon sits up and nearly bangs his head on the top of the bunk. “What makes you think…?” he begins, and then has to stop, because actually. Well. If anyone would know, it would be Tom. “You’re kidding me.”

“If it’s any consolation, it’s worth it,” Tom assures him, and he’s definitely laughing now, but Jon still can’t tell if he’s being serious. “Has Gabe come after you yet?”

“I ran away,” Jon admits sheepishly, and Tom laughs harder, but it makes Jon feel better, remembering this situation in reverse, Tom’s panic and Jon’s amusement at the situation.

“Look out,” Tom warns. “Travis is next.”

“Yeah,” Jon says slowly. He’s not sure when it will be safe to venture out into neutral territory again, and thinks that if he waits, they’ll probably just start coming to find him. “Why did I think doing this on tour was going to be a good plan?”

“I have no fucking idea,” Tom answers honestly, and then pauses for a half-second, switching tracks. “Hey, can I call you back? I’m kind of…”

Jon loses the rest of the sentence, because Spencer jerks open the curtain to his bunk and stands there with one hip cocked, holding his phone. “Some asshole put me on hold because his best friend called him to bemoan the state of his hangover,” he says.

Jon says, “Sorry,” very sincerely, and hears Tom crack up in his ear.

“Spencer?”

“I’ll call you later,” Jon confirms, and sees the smile break over Spencer’s face like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. He reaches out to tweak Spencer’s nose, and Spencer wrinkles it at him and walks away, hips swinging loosely, phone cradled to his ear.

Jon must be forgiven, though, because a bottle of aspirin rattles through the curtain a minute later, followed by water, and he can hear Spencer talking softly to Tom on the other side, laughing.

Jon takes four aspirin, shakes his head gingerly, and goes out to face the day.

* * *

They have no time on this tour, none at all, but Bill is being the way he gets when he wants something, which is how Jon ends up in the group wandering around by the riverside, sightseeing. It’s also how they end up renting paddleboats for an hour out on the water, although that actually has more to do with Brendon, and Jon has never in his life been able to say no to Brendon when he really wants something.

They split Brendon and Pete up for the safety of everyone, and Ryan and Ryland have already claimed their boat, a festive pink with a daisy on the prow. Gabe and Bill have been inseparable all day as usual, which is why Jon is so surprised to find himself anchoring the boat for Spencer and getting Bill instead. Bill climbs in and spends the next minute and a half trying to figure out what to do with his legs, in a craft designed for kids and people of normal heights.

Brendon seems to be on a duck-chasing mission, steering his slow-moving craft directly into a flock of unruffled birds. Siska clucks at them over the side while Jon fights a brief battle with Bill over which direction they’re going, further out onto the water or directly into Brendon and Siska’s boat. Pete already has the same idea Bill does; Jon can hear Patrick’s annoyed voice raised in protest above the general buzz of conversation as they collide.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Bill says without warning, deceptively casual.

“I really haven’t,” Jon answers honestly, which is the truth. He hasn’t been seeking Bill out as often as he’d originally expected to, but he hasn’t been avoiding him, either.

Bill doesn’t respond immediately, paddling thoughtfully and taking them out further from the bank. Jon sees Ryan and Ryland drift by, neither of them paddling, both reclined with their sunglasses on and faces turned up into the light.

“You haven’t been over at all since the other night,” Bill comments eventually, eyes hidden behind over-large sunglasses, making it harder for Jon to read him. “I would have thought you’d be hungry by now.”

“I have Spencer,” Jon points out, even though Bill already knows that, and hasn’t bothered to ask Jon about feeding for weeks now, presumably for the same reason.

“Oh, right,” Bill says vaguely, and Jon feels ridiculously like he should be apologizing right now, although he isn’t sure what he’s done. Bill stops paddling and forces Jon to slow with him, until they’re just drifting on the water, far enough away from the others that the chatter is just background noise, softer than the water lapping against the hull of their boat.

“Bill,” Jon starts, but Bill cuts him off.

“Nothing happened,” he says, with another sideways glance veiled behind shades. “The other night, I mean.”

“I figured,” Jon answers, a little wry. He expects Bill to respond in kind, with the same familiar twist to his lips, but it doesn’t come.

“I just don’t want you to think,” Bill begins, and then cuts off, looks away. “I wouldn’t. Just so you know.”

Jon’s breath catches, and he stops himself from asking, ‘why not?’ even as the words form on his tongue. “No?” he says finally, deliberately light.

Bill looks again, looks away, frowns. “Well, no,” he says, and Jon’s heart does a little turn over, just enough to make his teeth clench. “You and I, I mean. You know. Tom.”

Jon exhales, hard enough that Bill glances over at him, still frowning. Jon can’t think of a single thing to say.

“I just didn’t want you to think that,” Bill continues, like he needs to fill the silence with something, to reassure himself that they’re okay. “I mean, we were really drunk, and it’s not like anything happened. I don’t want it to be weird or anything.”

“I’m not avoiding you,” Jon promises, firmer. Bill looks sideways again, and this time he smiles, tentative.

They’ve gotten turned around during the conversation, a result of careless steering and halfhearted paddling, and are now heading back towards the rest of the group, who are still mostly together, paddling in circles or drifting aimlessly. Spencer and Gabe have coerced the ducks away from Brendon and Siska by throwing crumbles of Spencer’s scone over the side, an activity resulting in a lot of loud quacking from the ducks and aggrieved objections from Brendon.

Jon feels like this is the time to say something, while they’re more or less alone and Bill has already brought it up, but even as he tries to phrase it in his head, they’re jolted sideways by an unexpected impact, and Bill is scooping his hand through the water to fling it at their assailants even before Jon hears Pete’s brash laugh.

Brendon is trying to lure the ducks back with bits of leaves from the bottom of his boat, reaching out as far as he can and wiggling them enticingly, but it’s not working, and when Pete bumps their boat from behind he nearly tumbles out into the water. Brendon and Siska paddle around furiously to get revenge, dispelling the noisy flock around Spencer and Gabe in the process, and by the time the water fight breaks out in a wave of splashing and swearing between all three boats, the moment is gone.

* * *

Spencer comes down with something near the end of the tour. It’s not much, not enough to affect their performances, but he won’t share his blood with Jon for fear of infecting him. Mostly he just sniffles and wanders around in his pajama pants, letting Brendon ply him with new herbal tea remedies and using up all of the tissues.

Jon puts off feeding for three days, longer than he usually lets it go, until Ryan finally looks at him sitting bleary and miserable over the table at dinner, rolls up his sleeve and offers his wrist. And it’s not like Jon hasn’t done this with Ryan before, or that Ryan minds all that much, but it seems stupid of him to be doing this when Bill is only a bus away.

“No, it’s fine,” he tells Ryan, and when all he gets is an opaque look in return, he actually stands up to do something about it. “I’ll go find Bill.”

What he actually finds is Gabe and Mike and a bottle of vodka, which seems like an even better solution, except that an hour later he’s fairly tipsy and can’t stop staring at Gabe’s throat when he swallows. Gabe doesn’t take long to notice, and jumps to the right conclusion with, “You okay, Walker? You’re starting to look a little…vampy.”

Jon smiles – with teeth – beatifically. “Fine.”

He’s more than tipsy by the time they finally finish off the bottle, and nearly runs Bill down turning the corner on his way to the door. Bill catches him, already laughing, and says with a secret smile, “Someone told me it was time to throw your fangs up.”

Fucking Gabe. Not that Jon minds, particularly, because Bill is still holding onto him and he smells like fresh sweat and faded sunshine. Jon leans in to accept the invitation and finds himself nuzzling Bill’s neck, inhaling.

Bill is shaking against him, still silently laughing. “You and Mike got into the tequila, didn’t you?” he asks, and his hand is on Jon’s back, holding him steady. It’s strange, after so many months of doing this with Spencer in his bunk, to remember that Bill is usually backed against a wall. He’s not sure which is better, now that he’s thinking about it.

“Mmm,” Jon agrees, although tequila, vodka, whatever, the point is he’s feeling really good, and Bill is going to make him feel even better in a minute. He touches his tongue to the spot his nose has just brushed against, marking it.

He can feel every inch of Bill’s shudder, and that makes him crowd closer, wanting to feel it again. Bill’s voice is still even but slightly off-balance in his ear. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for the best place to bite,” Jon informs him, lips traveling slowly over more skin. He thinks he’s found it, but that doesn’t stop him from exploring while he has the chance, parting his lips to run just the tip of his tongue over a vein.

“Jon,” Bill says softly, and it sounds like a warning but he’s not moving away, not pushing with the hand still on Jon’s back. Jon ignores the tone and sucks on the spot he’s decided he wants, bringing the blood to the surface, heated and throbbing. “Jon,” Bill says again, but it’s still not enough to dissuade him, and he’s not imagining the sigh when he finally sinks his teeth in and Bill relaxes against him, hand cradling his head.

He draws it out, savors it, drifting between the slow-flowing blood on his tongue and the feel of Bill’s heartbeat, the sound of his breathing, shallow and quick. When he finally pulls back he licks his lips, sees Bill standing glassy-eyed and confused in front of him, still holding on as if he’s forgotten to let go.

Jon leans in to lick Bill’s throat, tasting skin and the memory of blood, and Bill tenses a little and asks again, “What are you doing?”

Jon answers by kissing him.

It’s sweet and a little sloppy, Bill surprised and Jon less than coordinated, leaning in too quickly for Bill to understand his intentions before their mouths collide, imperfect and unprepared. It’s still good, though, and before he fully realizes what’s going on, _Jon_ is the one against the wall, with Bill plastered against him like a limpet, hands wandering somewhere between greedy and reluctant.

Bill is the one to break the kiss, far earlier than Jon would have liked, and pull away. “We shouldn’t,” he says, breathing raggedly, and Jon hears the name drop silently between them like there’s someone else standing in the room.

“Tom already knows,” he says, voice rough, and only curses himself for it when he sees Bill’s eyes widen, hears the silence stretch out.

“Tom already knows what?” Bill says finally.

For answer, Jon leans in and kisses him again.

He feels it when Bill gives in, hears the whisper of Bill’s aggrieved capitulation and the tug of his hands on Jon’s belt, pulling him back towards the bunks. Jon is in complete agreement with this plan, especially when they’re behind the curtain and all he can smell is Bill, all around him, on the pillows and the sheets and his skin, everywhere. He remembers waking up here, the dark circle of bruises around Bill’s throat, and he’s biting before he even thinks about it, claiming more than feeding, sucking just hard enough that Bill moans, “Jesus, Jon,” and holds him closer with long, clenching fingers.

“I want you,” Jon says, answering Bill’s question from earlier, making it a statement with Bill laid out and panting underneath him.

“Yes,” Bill answers him, tugging hard on his hair and pulling him into another messy kiss. “Jesus Christ, yes.”

* * *

Jon wakes up with Bill wrapped half around him, half sprawled out across as much room as possible in the narrow space. He wrinkles his nose at the taste in his mouth, vodka and sleep, but the hangover isn’t as bad as it could have been. It’s still a strange sort of déjà vu, watching Bill wake up a little, smile at him and close his eyes again, with marks on his throat and the sheet twisted around both of them this time.

Bill hums inquiry when Jon reaches over to brush his hair back, smiles again and cracks an eye open. “What?”

Jon smiles back, tugging the sheet down a little so he can touch the marks on Bill’s neck. “Just thinking I seem to be making a habit of this.” Bill huffs a little laugh, creeps his fingers over Jon’s bare chest and tugs himself closer. Jon lets him settle again, wrapping an arm loosely over his shoulders. “What are you doing today?”

“I don’t know.” Bill yawns, eyes still resolutely closed. “I do what the whiteboard tells me to do.”

Jon doesn’t remember anything on his own schedule before the evening, and his phone is still in the pocket of his jeans on the floor if anyone needs him. Spencer will come looking before they actually have to get ready to be anywhere.

“You’re not going, are you?” Bill asks, frowning slightly in disapproval. His fingers tighten a little, almost but not quite staking their claim on Jon’s skin. He almost says something, tells Bill he doesn’t mind if he leaves bruises, but instead he just shrugs, smiling.

“Stay,” Bill orders, sneaking in to rest his head on Jon’s shoulder. “I’ll protect you from Travie.”

Jon laughs, and doesn’t think he could get a better offer than that.


End file.
